A comparison of leverpress and head-poke discriminated Sidman avoidance

A discriminated Sidman avoidance procedure used by Forgione (1970) was replicated using a head-poke response instead of a leverpress as the avoidance operant. The resultant data were described in terms of the five dependent measures reported by Forgione. Head-poke avoidance was found to be more efficient than its leverpress counterpart and compared very favorably with the lever-disabling (or shock-timer-on) procedure used by Forgione to break up inefficient leverpress behavior patterns.     

Detection of extraneous signals during sentence recognition

In two separate experiments, 40 Ss were presented with recorded sentences during each of which a click occurred. Ss had to depress a key as soon as they heard the click. RTs were f aster when the click was located at the major syntactic break of the sentence compared with RTs to clicks not at a break. This confirmed the hypothesis that processing load is a function of the surface structure of sentences, although the role of minor breaks was not clear. A second finding was that RTs were slower when the click was in the first rather than in the second half of the sentence. This can also be explained in terms of differential processing loads.     

Book reviews

Animal Discrimination Learning. Edited by R. M. Gilbert and N. S. Sutherland. London: Academic Press. 1969. Pp. xvi + 501. 1358.

Luce, R. D. and Tukey, J. W. (1964). Simultaneous conjoint measurement: a new type of fundamental measurement. J. math. Psychol. I, 1-27.

Discrimination Learning. By D. A. Riley. Boston: Allyn and Bacon Inc. 1968. Pp. 172. Paperback 21s.

Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 20. Palo Alto: Annual Reviews Inc. 1969. Pp. ix + 544. $9.00.

Cutaneous Sensation. By David Sinclair. London: Oxford University Press. 1967. Pp. xii + 306. 63s.

Modelling of Thinking and the Mind.. By N. M. Amosov. Translated by L. Finegold. New York: Spartan Books. London: Macmillan. 11967. Pp. xiii + 192.

The Mind of Mnemonist. By A. R. Luria. London: Jonathan Cape. 1969. Pp. xi + 160. 25s.

Determinants of Infant Behaviour IV. Edited by B. M. Foss. London: Methuen. 1969. Pp. 303. £3 10s.

Brain and Behaviour. Volumes 1-4. Edited by Karl Pribram. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. 1969. Pp. 496 +573 + 523 + 524. 12s. 6d. per volume.     

Stability of Values of Junior High School Pupils and Their Parents Over Two Years

97 parent-daughter pairs and 80 parent-son pairs were administered a value-orientation instrument when the children were in junior high school and again 2 years later. Girls became more concerned with what they could give of themselves in their eventual work. Girls' parents began to stress home-making qualities. Boys became less concerned with the more tangible rewards of work and more concerned with utilizing their capabilities. Boys' parents rated all the values more important than did their sons. Boys and their parents evidenced more disagreement regarding values than did girls and their parents. However, when focusing on the most important value, there is considerable agreement between children and parents. Parents have remained consistent in their value ratings over the 2 years while children have changed their ratings in the direction of the values their parents hold for them. The children of parents who have changed their value ratings were not different from children of parents who remained consistent in the ratings. Nor were children who changed their value ratings different from those whose values were stable.     

A REPLY TO JASPER HOLLEY'S DEFENSE OF THE G INDEX

Holley argues that the appearance of effects related to person means in the factor analysis of G indices is due to Levy's failure to adopt the procedure of 'double extending' the score matrix in Q analysis. Holley also points out that this same procedure has no effect upon the G indices. Therefore there is no argument and Levy's results and conclusions stand unaltered.     

Observing responses and discrimination learning

An operant response in the pigeon, whose performance results in exposure to the discriminative stimuli, is described and suggested as an experimental analogue for “observing.” Such an operant response is then used to explore the relationship between observing responses and discrimination learning in a variety of discrimination situations, of progressively increasing complexity. In general, the results support the contention that the development and maintainence of observing responses is closely related to the degree of differential behaviour manifested toward the discriminative stimuli. Certain modifications are suggested in the theoretical formulation underlying the concept of “observing responses.”     

An analysis of Guttman's simplex

Applying a Spearman formula for factor loadings to a variant of the diagonal method, the Guttman simplex model is factored algebraically inton/2 additive factors. The finding that communalities can be discovered such that the rank of a simplex becomesn/2 is contradictory to Guttman's contention that the minimal rank isn — 2. Certain matrices of 4 and 5 variables presented by Guttman as simplexes, can, in general, be considered 2-factor matrices, easily analyzed to simple structure without rotation. One example of 6 variables is factored by the method described to a 3-factor structure.Prepared under Contract 816(02) between the Office of Naval Research and Washington University and presented in part at a meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, St. Louis, Missouri, March 27, 1959. Permission is granted for reproduction, translation, publication, use, and disposal in whole and in part by or for the United States Government.